Fate Has Brought Your Heart To Me
by dragongoddess13
Summary: The only proofs that Steve is still breathing are the occasionally harsh wheezes that wrack his boney chest. It's January and Pneumonia has hit his frail body hard, once again. James thinks tonight might be his last, and an overwhelming fear erupts through his chest condensing moisture in his eyes. He lays on the floor, on the old mattress they found out back, and he prays.
1. Chapter 1

Fate Has Brought Your Heart To Me

A/N: I might add more to this. I'm not sure yet.

xXx

The only proofs that Steve is still breathing are the occasionally harsh wheezes that wrack his boney chest. It's January and Pneumonia has hit his frail body hard, once again. James thinks tonight might be his last, and an overwhelming fear erupts through his chest condensing moisture in his eyes. He lays on the floor, on the old mattress they found out back, and he prays. He prays for his best friend. He prays for the boy who has so much to offer, who deserves to become a man.

He prays with all his heart, to any deity who will listen.

" _Your love for him is so pure."_ A voice whispers through the dark. It seems too loud compared to the stark silence that permeated before.

James sits up, looking over to the bed where Steve is curled up tight, trying to keep warm. He does not stir as James moves around. Another warning sign that plagues his mind.

" _Your thoughts are plagued with grief."_ The voice whispers again and James startles this time, the whisper so close he can feel the rush of breath.

"Who's there?" James whispers back into the darkness. It seems so much darker than before. Darker than it should be. He realizes, belatedly, that the street lamps outside aren't lit like they were when he went to bed.

" _Me."_ The voice is feminine, he's fairly certain.

"Me who?" He feels ridiculous all of a sudden and when there's no immediate response he lays back down, determined to put his worries from his mind.

He's just gotten comfortable when he feels the mattress shift beside him. He assumes it's Steve, desperate for any kind of warmth.

"Stevie, the bed is better for you." He mumbles but there's no response. So he opens his eyes and bites back his immediate response.

The woman lying next to him is everything out of his wildest dreams. Curves and lips and gorgeous eyes. She's stunning.

"Who are you?" He asks, frozen in place.

"Me." She smiles, her teeth perfectly white and straight. Her long brown hair is laid around her like a halo, highlighting her soft cheek bones and warm smile.

"How did you get in here?" He asks, though he thinks that's probably not the most pressing question at the moment.

"You invited me." She tells him. Before he can reply she continues; "I heard your prayers James Barnes. They were so desperate, I couldn't ignore them."

"Are you an angel?" He questions in awe. She's exactly what his mortal mind would conjure as an angel.

"The Angels can't help you, James, but I can." She says with a smile that disarms him of all logic. "I want to help you."

"How, how can you help me?" He asks and he's vaguely aware of the frantic note in his voice.

"Your worried your friend won't make it through the night. You should be very worried. He is not well, I can feel his life force waning as we speak." She explains.

Panic floods his veins and he tries to sit up, only to find his body won't move.

"Do not panic, James, I can help him. For a price."

"Anything, name it. I'll give you anything." He tells her franticly, his eyes looking toward the bed where the slight form of Steve Rogers sleeps on, slowly dying.

James feels the room shift and realizes she's rolled him into his back, hovering over him with her legs on either side of his hips.

"I want you, James Buchanan Barnes." She tells him, almost sweetly.

"Anything. Anything you want." He answers without hesitation.

She smiles. "Deal." She whispers.

There's a burning in his chest that is not entirely unpleasant. It rolls to fruition before slowly ebbing away.

"Is that it?" He asks when it's over.

"No, that was merely the contract. Now we must work quickly, he does not have a lot of time before he is beyond even my reach."

"What do I do?"

"We must make a connection, James. You already have a connection to Steven, now you must forge one with me and with it, I will give him your strength."

"How do we do that?" He asks but he's fairly certain he already knows the answer. James is eighteen, he's fully aware of what this appears to be leading to.

She smiles at him and it goes a long way in calming him as her fingers trail along the exposed skin of his neck. He shivers at the contact. She runs her hands down his chest and up under his thermal shirt, lifting it along the defined muscles and exposing him to the cold of the room. He finds himself able to move again, but only slightly, as he lifts up for her to pull it off. She remains leaning over him, planting the softest kisses along his jaw.

"Tell me when you can see the strings." she whispers as she pulls back, shifting her weight off of him long enough to rid him of his long johns. He's confused by the statement but he doesn't question her, not as her hands move deftly about him, muting his inner conscious as he stands at attention for her.

James is only able to move his head, he finds, but slowly, lazily. He is not alert, not even slightly. He feels as though this is all a dream and he thinks he may close his eyes and let Morpheus take him, but then the most intense pleasure rears up with in him and he is gasping with it's intensity. He finds her down his body, his cock deep in her throat and he gasps and groans at the sight. She pulls back to the tip and wraps a hand around him, grinning up at him as he collapses back against his pillow. He curses as she continues her onslaught a pressure rising in the pit of his stomach.

He opens his eyes to look down at her again, certain the mere sight of her will push him over the edge he craves, but his attentions are diverted elsewhere. Steve is still asleep on the bed, his body still curled up tightly, but it's what he sees trailing from his body that startles him.

"I see them." he whispers, not entirely sure when he made the decision to speak. The woman stops, but the pleasure does not fade. She crawls up his body, laying flat against him, nibbling at his jaw.

"Those are the strings of fate." she tells him, taking his hand and guiding him to touch the glowing red yarn that extends from his body to Steve's. He touches it for only a moment, pulling back as the emotions overwhelm him. "Fate has ordained that Steven Grant Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes will be forever linked. Not even death will sever your bond." she explains. "Now you must forge a bond with me, so that I may manipulate your bond with Steven and give him your strength through it."

James looks up at her, finally able to tear his eyes from Steve. He's not too proud to hide the tears that build there. "Please, whatever you have to do. Please save him. Take everything if you have to, just please…" he cuts himself off, holding back a sob. "Just don't let him die."

She hushes him as she leans over him again, gently wiping the tears from his cheeks. "Calm yourself James, fate has brought me to you because he was not meant to die this night. There is too much for him, for you, to do in this world."

She does not give him a warning as she slides him inside of her. The emotions that overwhelm him are stamped down as pleasure returns to the forefront of his mind in full force. She rides him with slow, undulating movements and James thinks that this may be what all the poets meant by "making love". As the emotion builds between them a new string begins to form, starting from him and trailing upward. When it finally attaches, the world ceases to exist for just that moment. The pleasure explodes inside him, ripping though his body in a way he's never felt before. There's a roaring rush of sound in his ears and he realizes its his own heart beat, the blood pumping through him as adrenaline surges forward.

And then it stops; abruptly and without warning. Silence envelopes him once again and in the darkness he feels it. The strong, steady flutter of Steve's heart. He doesn't know how he knows it's Steve, he just does. The steady beating rhythm, soothes him and he closes his eyes to savor it. He's never heard Steve's heart beat so steadily before.

" _It's because of you."_ her voice filters into his thoughts. He can't open his eyes, he can't move his body, but he's not afraid.

" _Thank you."_ he thinks. " _Thank you for helping him."_

He feels her hum more than he hears it and then the weight of her against him begins to lessen.

" _Wait!"_ he thinks in what he assumes is the closest to panis he will get at this moment. " _I don't even know your name."_

She doesn't answer him, at least not right away. He's given up on an answer as he gives in to sleep. It is on the last vestiges of consciousness that he hears her reply.

" _You may call me Darcy."_


	2. Chapter 2

Fate Has Brought Your Heart To Me

II

xXx

"I know her." James whispers more to himself than anyone. Steve is on his left, "Howard's kid", off to his right.

"Who, Buck?" Steve asks him, worried as usual. Steve doesn't seem to be anything other than worried anymore. James can't blame him, there's plenty to worry about.

"That girl." James finally replies, gesturing through the glass wall that separates this usually empty lab from the lab space beside it.

"Foster's assistant?" Tony asks. He's been tinkering away at the workbench, trying to find the right combination of wiring to fix the neural controls in James' arm. It's been twitching since he was no longer forced to return to Hydra for maintenance. Tony thought it could be a fail safe to ensure the Soldier would never run away, which just seems to piss the billionaire off more.

"Is that who she is? I see her around every so often." Steve says, he's not agitated, but he's bothered by what James is saying. Again, James can't blame him.

"Yeah, they were a packaged deal. Foster wouldn't come work for SI without her. I don't know why, she's not a scientist." Tony explains. "She's more qualified for admin work than lab work. Pepper mentioned poaching her for HR or something similar."

"Do you know where you know her from?" Steve asks. He's not fidgeting, but he's not standing still either. It's unnerving. Steve has always been a fidgeter, at least, James thinks he was.

James focuses on the young woman through the glass, all curves and full lips and long brown hair. Her clothes are kind of frumpy, like she's trying to hide under them and there's a pair of thick rimmed glasses perched on her nose. He knows he knows her, there isn't any doubt in his mind, even with all the second guessing he's been doing since breaking free of Hydra's control.

"No, but I know her." James finally replies.

Tony looks just like his father when he's worried. James doesn't think he'd want to hear that. "Could she be…" he trails off, knowing they understand what he's trying to say.

"No." James answers definitively.

"Are you sure, Buck?" Steve questions delicately and James kind of wants to punch him for it, but he refrains. Steve has every reason to question James' logic.

"Yes, I don't know why, but I am sure." James tells him. As if sensing that she's being stared at, the woman looks up from her computer and catches James' eye. She's not scared of him, but it's obvious that she wasn't expecting what she found. A blush tints her cheeks and she looks back down at her screen quickly.

"Maybe you were sent after Foster at some point." Tony suggests, missing the minor exchange completely. Steve does not miss it.

"Why would Hydra go after Foster?" Steve asks.

"They were at ground zero when Thor landed on earth the first time. Apparently they used to date. Plus, more importantly, her research focuses on the Einstein-Rosen Bridge, or what Thor calls the Rainbow Bridge." Tony explains, tinkering away. As if on cue, Jane makes herself known in the lab, appearing at Darcy's side and striking up a conversation.

"So that could be it then, right Buck?" Steve asks him, and God bless him, he sounds hopeful. It makes sense though. Better for her to have been a target at one point than the alternative.

James sits back in the chair and finally looks away from her. "I guess, yeah."

Steve looks pleased and drops the subject completely when James doesn't add to the conversation. Steve's going to check Hydra's records later, just to be sure. James thinks it won't be that easy, but he doesn't know why. He rarely ever knows why anymore.

"Alright, I think I got it." Tony speaks up and all other conversation is suspended as the billionaire genius gets to the painful work of reattaching his arm.

When Tony is done, James is tired, so he begs off whatever Steve suggests they do and goes back to his room to sleep. It's there that his mind drifts back to the woman and it's her face he sees as he drifts off to sleep.

xXx

James wakes from a dream knowing he should remember it and watching as it slips through his fingers anyway. He knows that sort of thing is normal and yet he can't bring himself to accept it. It just seems to him that everything is always slipping through his fingers these days. Memories are blurry or scattered. Thoughts get lost in the back of his mind, forcing him to struggle to keep them active. Nightmares plague his nights and good dreams are few and far between. He knows that he's sick, that he needs help, and that this isn't going to be an easy, overnight fix, but James is tired, he's so tired, and he just wants it to be over.

"Then just end it." the softest whisper of thought crosses his mind, so substantial is almost sounds like it's coming from the room around him. He could do that. He could end it, save himself the trouble of dealing with all the pain and turmoil that was yet to come. He could save Tony from having to bite his tongue, knowing what James did to his parents and pretending it doesn't bother him because James had been programmed to do it.

And then there is Steve… No, he couldn't do that to Steve. The stupid punk was so determined he would probably go all the way to hell and drag him back if he tries.

"Or maybe he'll finally be free." the thought came and went, like a whisper on the wind.

Maybe he would be. He'd be upset for awhile, but Steve was a survivor, he'd move on eventually. He had Sam and Nat and Clint and all the others. They would take care of him.

"Bucky?" Steve's voice pulls him from his thoughts and the heavy weight in his hand draws his attention down. When had he picked up his knife? "Bucky, are you awake?" Steve calls out again and James shoves the knife back in it's holster, securing it in the drawer of his nightstand.

"Yeah." James calls back as he sits on the edge of his bed. The door opens to reveal Steve's hulking frame and James has a flash of something familiar. A dinghy lab, so much pain and then Steve, standing over him. "You used to be smaller." he mutters to himself, but Steve has heard him and stops short.

"Yeah, I did." he replies.

"What happened?" James asks caught in the memory.

"I joined the army."

And just like that it's gone. Sensing this, Steve continues;

"You slept through dinner, are you hungry?" he asks and his answer is the rumble of James' stomach.

"I guess so."

Steve smiles and it's the prettiest thing James has seen in a long time. He gestures for James to follow him and James does freely. They head for the communal kitchen, their private quarters kitchen not having been stocked recently.

"I, uh, I looked into that woman. Foster's assistant." Steve tells him as they descend in the elevator.

"And?" James asks.

"She and Foster were on a list in the Hydra files, but there's no record of you going after them." Steve explains. "Is it possible you read the file?"

James shrugs. "Anything's possible."

Steve nods. "Alright, so we won't stress about it then."

James snorts. "I'll believe it when I see it, punk."

Steve stares at him and for a moment and James thinks he's said something wrong. But then Steve smiles as the elevator doors open and he leads the way out onto the communal floor.

The residence of the tower are mostly night owls, so it's no surprise to hear someone moving around in the kitchen as they round the corner. It's who they find in the kitchen that surprises them.

The young woman from the lab is standing at the stove top, heating something in a small saucepan. There are two plates and bowls beside her, finished sandwiches on the plates. She looks up as they enter, absentmindedly checking her messy bun as she does. She smiles at them, oblivious to the turmoil she's unwittingly caused.

"Hello." she greets them cheerily. "I'll be out of your hair in just a minute." she continues.

"No need to rush out on our account, doll." James replies almost instinctively. He looks to Steve and wonders if he looks just as surprised by the words as well.

Her smile widens and she goes back to stirring the contents of the small pot. Steve and James shake it off quickly and move around the kitchen looking for food. Steve's not really sure when he decided to speak to her again, but when he has the ingredients for a truly massive sandwich in hand he turns to her.

"Ya know, I've seen you around but I don't think we've ever been introduced. I'm Steve." he says, drawing her attention again.

"Darcy, Darcy Lewis." she replies with a smaller, but no less bright smile.

"And this is Bucky."

Darcy turns and greets James as well. "It's nice to meet both of you." she tells them. "You've both only been here a few months right?" she asks.

"Yeah, we were living out in Brooklyn for about a year." Steve explains.

"How are you settling in to life in the tower?" she asks. "I know it was a huge adjustment for me."

"It's...different." James replies. He finds himself drawn to her voice, dark and blurred memories pinging around his brain at the sound of it. "Can I ask you a question?" he continues ignoring Steve's surprise.

"I don't see why not." she takes it in stride.

"Have we met before?"

Darcy looks up from the pot confused. "You mean before today?" he nods. "Not that I'm aware of. I mean I'd like to think I'd remember someone as handsome as you." she winks at him and turns back to her food. Steve's a little slack jawed at her boldness but there's a strange giddiness that's bubbling up inside James.

Darcy takes the pot off the stove and turns is off, distributing the soup into the two bowls. She then sets about cleaning up. While she's cleaning, James and Steve set about making their own dinner, occasionally glancing up at her as she moves around the kitchen.

When she's finished she puts the plates and bowls along with cutlery, napkins and a carafe of coffee on a tray. "It was nice meeting you both." she tells them as she walks away.

The silence she leaves in her wake is weighty.


	3. Chapter 3

Fate Has Brought Your Heart To Me

III

xXx

Steve is rendered speechless by this woman, which is not a difficult thing for a woman to do, but for this woman in particular, it's… not troubling, but... Strange. Steve had spent most of the evening scouring the leaked Hydra files in hopes of finding answers for James' insistence that he knows a young woman he has no reason to know. He finds her rather easily, her association with Dr. Jane Foster putting her on a list of potential targets. There are notes next to her name that don't make a lot of sense to Steve and he makes a note to speak with Natasha about it later.

In the meantime he continues to dig and finds very little in the way of background information. She went to Culver University, interned with Dr. Foster and then finished her degree online. Hydra tracked her as extensively as they tracked Dr. Foster and Steve knows that's strange. Compared to Dr. Foster, based on outward appearances only, she's not as tactically useful to Hydra. She's not a scientist with major discoveries under her belt and she doesn't appear to be much more than just above average intelligence. Her own work is impressive regardless, but Steve can't see the bigger picture where she's involved. As impressive as a Master's in Political Science is at such a young age, it isn't on par with an Astrophysicist or an Engineer or everything that Bruce is.

So why does James insist he knows her and why has Hydra put so much effort into learning more about her, with, what it seems is very little success.

"I thought I smelled burning batteries." Natasha's voice is right behind him and he forces himself not to react at her sudden and unexpected proximity. "Looking into the Hydra files again?" she asks, though she knows the answer. At this point Steve must have them memorized.

"Yeah." he pauses. "Actually, let me ask you something." he continues. "What does it say to you, when an organization has spent a lot of time looking into someone but has little to nothing in their file?"

"Usually it means there isn't much to find. Why?" she replies walking around the sofa and taking a seat beside him.

Steve hesitates, then; "Can I ask you to keep this to yourself? I don't want to make a big deal out of this yet, especially if there isn't anything there." he tells her. She agrees. "Bucky insists he knows this girl that works for Dr. Foster. He doesn't know how though."

"So you looked her up in the Hydra files? What did you find?"

"That's just it. It's clear that Hydra put a lot of time and man hours into looking into her, but all they've got here are the basics." Steve explains.

Natasha's got that look on her face, the one that tells him she's slipping into spy mode. She gestures for him to show her the tablet he's been working on and he hands it over. She scrolls through the information there before speaking again. "This isn't even the basics, Steve, it's nothing. The basics imply date of birth, hometown, parents, siblings." she scrolls down. "This is nothing. I could google her name and find all of this out."

"What are you saying?" Steve asks sitting up a little straighter.

"I'm saying, Hydra worked very hard to learn about this woman and got nothing a thirteen year old armed with a search engine couldn't find in an afternoon." Natasha explains. She turns back to the tablet to continue scrolling and Steve mentions the notes beside her name on the target list. They make more sense to him now, but he knows Natasha will want to know. "Subject too unknown." she reads aloud. "Well, at least we know she's not Hydra."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, subjects that are 'too unknown' were marked for execution when the tricarriers launched." she tells him. "They would have killed her if they had succeeded."

Steve watches as Natasha works on the tablet, she's no longer in the Hydra files, now looking into the young woman's SI Employee file.

Natasha sighs in the what most people would assume is defeat. Steve knows better. "There's nothing here either. Her emergency contacts are Dr. Foster, Dr. Selvig and Thor. There is no family listed and from the looks of it she doesn't live in the tower even though she could if she wanted to." Natasha pauses. "I need to look into her more, eventually talk to her about this. She may be a security risk." she continues handing him his tablet. "I'll start with Pepper, she's the one who approved her hiring and it looks like she's interested in her for a different position."

Steve nods mutely as she walks away. There's not much he can do now, which normally wouldn't bode well for his constant need to keep busy, except Jarvis tells him that James has just woken up. Steve checks the time and decides its not too late to grab something to eat.

xXx

When Darcy is gone, Steve turns to James. "Anything?" he asks. James shakes his head.

"No. What about you? Don't tell me you didn't spend all night looking into her." James replies taking a massive bite of his sandwich right after.

"Yeah, well, it's a little complicated. Apparently Hydra put a lot of time and effort into learning about her only to come up with nothing. They marked her for execution on launch day." Steve explains. "Her employee file isn't much better."

"You think she's dangerous?" James questions. It doesn't appear he's concerned, but then again, he keeps his thoughts and feelings pretty close to the vest these days.

"I don't think she's Hydra, and neither does Nat. She's going to look into her as a potential security risk though."

James nods in understanding. "She'll get to the bottom of it."

Steve silently agrees and they finish their dinner in companionable silence. There's a feeling of familiarity to it and Steve hopes James feels it too. The work he's put into trying to get better has been halting and sometimes stagnant. Steve wonders, not for the first time, if maybe they need more help, less conventional help.

"Sending him away, brilliant." the thought comes to him as he's cleaning up. "Send him away so he won't be your problem anymore."

"No." Steve mumbles shaking his head of the thoughts.

"Yes, it'll be easy, just send him away. Let him be someone else's problem and then you can get back to fixing your own life." the voice is a whisper and if he didn't know any better he'd think someone was whispering in his ear. Sam had mentioned something about this, though these were a little different than he had described. He called them intrusive thoughts. Lots of people apparently had them and there were techniques for dealing with them. Sam had mentioned them in relation to James, he never thought he would have them himself.

"Stevie!" James' voice cuts through his thoughts and his head snaps up to look out across the room. James is by the door looking back at him. "You alright?" he asks. Steve nods. "Alright then, I'm going back to bed."

"Okay, see you in the morning, Buck." Steve replies as James walks out, throwing a wave over his shoulder as the door swings shut behind him.

"He doesn't want to be here anyway." the voice returns and Steve scowls.

"Shut the fuck up." he replies out loud.

"I didn't even say anything yet." Tony replies startling Steve. He turns to find their host standing in the doorway.

Steve sighs. "Not you, sorry." he mutters but it's clear Tony has already moved on.

"I've got a new prototype for Barnes' arm fabricating in the lab right now. I'm going to have Bruce look over the components that will attach to his nerve endings."

Steve takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. "Thanks Tony, I don't know where we'd be right now if it weren't for you." he's being sincere, which is obviously making Tony uncomfortable. Despite that Tony does make an effort.

"Yeah, well, none of this is really his fault is it? Despite my initial reaction." Tony replies and Steve thinks it's telling that he doesn't find his discomfort amusing. "You didn't have to tell me, there was a chance I would have gone after him and you knew that, but you did and I appreciate your honesty." Tony's body continues to tense as he speaks.

Steve can't help but see the similarities between Howard and Tony. He knows Tony probably wouldn't want to hear that, but it's there, standing out quite clearly. The way he moves and the way he speaks, if Tony started using 40's slang, they'd be hard to tell apart.

"I've been thinking that maybe I'm not doing enough for him." Steve replies and Tony looks relieved at the change of subject.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, maybe a new arm and a psychiatrist aren't the ways to go for him. They did a lot of damage and I can see how frustrated he is when he realizes we're all tip toeing around him. Maybe what he needs is a non scientific solution."

Tony looks a little dumbfounded. Steve's not surprised though. His life is all about science, it wouldn't have occurred to him that there were other options. "What are you going to take him to church and ask God to sort him out?" it's kind of harsh, but Steve lets it go. He knows he's thrown Tony off his feet, so to speak, and he's willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Neither of us have been to church since before the army." Steve tells him, and it's entirely not the point but he feels like the clarification is important. "Thor mentioned that he's had dealings with a man named Doctor Strange. He's…. The Sorcerer Supreme? He says Strange also used to be a neurosurgeon before he found magic. The best of both worlds I guess."

Tony looks like he wants to argue, but surprisingly enough he bites his tongue. "He should still get a new arm. Magic or no magic, I can't imagine walking around with a soviet relic attached to his body will be very helpful to the healing process."

Steve lets out a sigh, his whole body relaxing, the tension in his muscles smoothing out. "Thank you Tony. I owe you. I owe you everything."

Tony waves him off and makes a hasty retreat, leaving Steve alone in the kitchen. The voice whispers in the back of his mind again;

"He's only being this helpful to get you both out of here faster. He doesn't want you here. Your the reason his father was so distant. James is the reason his parents are dead. He didn't even put up a fight when you mentioned magic. He can't wait until your both gone."

Steve shakes his head. Maybe he should have his own head checked while their at it.


End file.
